Contributed on Oct 6, 2012

As the Synod Fathers gather to begin the year of faith, we consider the role of the Church as she takes up the mission of Christ to bring together all the people of the world in praise and obedience.

October 8, 2012
Monday of 27th Week in Course
Vatican II
As we begin the year of faith this week, I feel called to begin a new sermon series, setting for my theme the Holy Father’s admonition to return to the Documents of Vatican Council II. The Fathers of the Church were particularly
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Contributed on Oct 13, 2012

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Jesus built a Church, and the Scriptures give us many inspiring images of the Church, especially for evangelization.

Monday of 28th Week in Course 2012
St. Theresa of Jesus
Vatican II
It is especially fitting that our readings today focus on the nature of man’s response to God’s initiative, because that response culminates in the assembly we call the Church. Lumen Gentium is the Church’s
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Contributed on Oct 20, 2012

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The Council Fathers made much use of Paul's theology of the Church in writing the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church, and it points us outward to a starving world.

Monday of 29th Week in Course 2012
Vatican II Documents
The occurrence of the Letter to the Ephesians in our Lectionary right at the beginning of the year of faith, in which have begun to study Lumen Gentium, is quite providential. Here in chapter 2 of the letter, St. Paul makes a subtle
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Contributed on Oct 27, 2012

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The call to be the New Israel is a call to holiness and mission.

Monday of 30th Week in Course
Lumen Gentium
The Fathers of the Council looked at the Church from every direction, and gave us teaching on all the names of the Church. It seems to me that their favorite name for the Church is “People of God.” It, more than any other, shows the
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Contributed on Nov 3, 2012

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The Church, as the Council Fathers say, is both one and diverse. Our citizenship is not here.

Monday of 31st Week in Course
5 Nov 2012
Lumen Gentium
If ever there were a set of Scriptures suited to the eve of the most contentious, vicious political contest in my lifetime, these are they. The one place where we must be one in mind and heart is in the family, and I mean the family of
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Contributed on Nov 9, 2012

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The bishop has a special ministry of leadership, teaching and service in the Church.

November 12, 2012
Vatican II Documents
Monday of 32nd Week in Course
St. Paul writes today that “a bishop, as God's steward, must be blameless; he must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, 8 but hospitable, a lover of goodness, master of himself,
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Contributed on Nov 17, 2012

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Christ loves us too much to let us coast.

Monday of 33rd Week in Course 2012
Vatican II–Lumen Gentium
Not Abandoning Our First Love
One of the greatest temptations of life is to coast. We come to a point of satisfaction in some area of our living, and just want that to last forever. So we stop taking risks, we stop putting
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Contributed on Nov 22, 2012

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The Constitution on the Church in the Modern World gives us a kind of charter for the substance of the New Evangelization.

Monday of 34th Week in Course 2012
Documents of Vatican II: Gaudium et Spes
The redeemed pictured in John’s Revelation stand in the Father’s house on Mount Zion, that is the heavenly mountain, and they are with the Lamb, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. What are they doing for
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Contributed on Dec 1, 2012

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The Council envisioned a humanity integrated, not split apart, and entirely in the image of Christ

Monday of First Week in Advent 2012
Gaudium et Spes
When Roman general Titus stood on Mount Scopus in March of the year 70 AD, and looked toward the rebel city of Jerusalem, he learned by experience what many before him had known. Like Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar, Antiochus and Herod, he
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Contributed on Dec 8, 2012

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Jesus healed the whole person; so the Church has the mission to bring the world to His healing touch through the sacraments.

December 10, 2012
Monday of 2nd Week in Advent
Gaudium et Spes
Let’s be very clear about one thing in today’s lesson from Isaiah–the Judean desert is nothing to joke about. Hot, desolate and arid, it devours lost travelers just as easily as its scarce rainfall. The people
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Contributed on Dec 15, 2012

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The Christian has special duties to family. This is an important way to image Christ in our lives.

Monday of 3rd Week in Advent
Gaudium et Spes
The outpouring of grief around the world over the murder of twenty-six innocent people, twenty of them children, in Connecticut has generated a number of Internet videos featuring one or the other version of the Pie Jesu, a text of the Requiem Mass.
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Contributed on Dec 22, 2012

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We need to spend time--chronos time--preparing ourselves and engaging in Kairos--God's time.

Vigil of Christmas 2012
Gaudium et Spes
Kairos and Chronos
Baruch Adonai Elohim Israel. Thus begins almost every Hebrew prayer to the Lord, the God of Israel, and so began the first words of the prayer Zechariah spoke at his son’s birth. These were words of thanksgiving and praise
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Contributed on Dec 28, 2012

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In the world we struggle with darkness, but we have the power of God's love, expressed in the Incarnate Word, on our side, and the victory is already won.

Monday in the Octave of Christmas 2012
Gaudium et Spes
“The Word became flesh, and pitched his tent among us.” This literal translation of the words of John’s hymn to the Logos, the Word of God, sums up the Good News we celebrated this year as we celebrate it in every year.
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Contributed on Jan 4, 2013

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We need to understand what the Council Fathers intended for Liturgy, and the two things most people think they wanted which are not what they actually said they wanted.

Monday after Epiphany
7 January 2012
Sacrosanctum Concilium
The mission of the Church on earth is exactly the same as the mission of Jesus during His thirty-some years on earth. He was, and we must be, the fulfillment of the twin commandment of God: love God with all our hearts and love our
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Contributed on Jan 19, 2013

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Just as Jesus learned obedience through suffering, so St. Agnes and all the saints; we celebrate this in every Mass.

Monday of 2nd Week in Course
21 Jan 2013: St. Agnes
Sacrosanctum Concilium
Jesus offered up prayers and supplications during his mortal life, with loud cries and tears, to the one who could save Him from death–His eternal Father, and He was heard. And He learned obedience through
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Contributed on Jan 26, 2013

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The one sacrifice of Calvary is re-presented daily in the Holy Eucharist--for our sanctification and the salvation of every human.

Monday of 3rd Week in Course
January 28, 2013
Sacrosanctum Concilium
The sacrifice which the author of the Letter to the Hebrews, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, was a single historical event. But we must also acknowledge that from the beginning, the Church has recognized that we
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Contributed on Feb 1, 2013

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Over and over in the Gospels we see the work of Christ culminate in a celebratory banquet, even in the healing of the little girl.

Monday of 5th Week in Course
Feb 4 2012
Sacrosanctum Concilium
The story of Jesus’s raising of the little girl, the daughter of Jairus, is one of the most touching in the Holy Gospels. The incident may have happened in Capernaum, St. Peter’s hometown, and it involved one of the
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Contributed on Feb 9, 2013

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The dignity of man affirmed by God in Scripture contrasts with the attitude of ancient and modern pagan cultures

Monday of 5th Week in Course
February 11, 2013
Our Lady of Lourdes
Gaudium et Spes
“As many as touched the fringe of His garment were healed.” On this World Day of the Sick, it is particularly appropriate to look at the healing power and history of Jesus as it is displayed in the
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Contributed on Feb 16, 2013

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The council fathers get specific about how we can help the poor.

Monday of 1st Week in Lent 2013
Gaudium et Spes
You Shall Love Your Neighbor
One of the great heresies of modern time is a subtle one based on the notion of sola fide or “faith alone.” That was Martin Luther’s great mistake, of course. The only place in the NT where we read
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Contributed on Feb 23, 2013

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The call of Christ not to judge, not to condemn, is directed at our relationships with other humans, not evil actions themselves.

Monday of 2nd Week in Lent 2013
Gaudium et Spes
Today’s Scriptures are most appropriate as follow-ups to the Gospel of Transfiguration we heard on Sunday. Jesus is seen on Mount Tabor conversing with Moses, the great lawgiver, and Elijah, the greatest prophet. Jesus has always been seen
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Contributed on Mar 2, 2013

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The stark message of the Gospel must be delivered in ways that will be heard by modern humans.

Monday of 3rd Week in Lent
Gaudium et Spes
Adapting the Delivery, Not the Message
Those commentators who are not very familiar with the documents of Vatican II, but who count themselves experts on the “spirit” of Vatican II frequently see the Council as creating a break with the
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Contributed on Mar 9, 2013

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Wisdom gently attracts the mind of humans to a quest and a love for what is true and good through the beautiful. The modern mind no less than the ancient mind needs God.

Monday of 4th Week in Lent 2013
Gaudium et Spes
Most commentators–even those who wrote in the first millennium–believe that John’s Gospel was the last one written. The historian Eusebius quotes Clement of Alexandria as saying that John, aware of the other three Gospels, wrote
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Contributed on Mar 16, 2013

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The horror of living a life of willful ignorance leads to enslavement to passions and sin.

Monday of 5th Week in Lent 2013
Gaudium et Spes
“Vos autem nescitis.” “But you do not know.” These words of Jesus in today’s Gospel reverberate through the Gospel of St. John. Over and over again Jesus tells the Jews–and, by extension, us–that we do
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Contributed on Apr 1, 2013

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The witness of the apostles to the Resurrection challenges us to face the mystery of our own existence and life, and adopt a way of life that would inspire others at our own funerals.

Monday of Easter Week
Gaudium et Spes
Fifty-one days. What a difference fifty-one days can make, if Jesus Christ and the Spirit of Jesus Christ permeates those days. Look at the followers of Jesus in the wake of His arrest, torture and execution. They were cowering in a little upper room in
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Contributed on Apr 6, 2013

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The Incarnation of Jesus Christ, Son of God, manifest the Divine Mercy that we can continue to show to the world during and even after our deaths.

Solemnity of the Annunciation 2013
Honoring the Incarnation with Estate Planning
It doesn’t feel like March 25, but for the Church, today is that day–the Solemnity of the Annunciation, our Festival of the Incarnation of the Son of God. Easter came very early this year, the second
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Contributed on Apr 7, 2013

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Jesus calls us to lower the nets for a catch, even though it means persecution and rejection. We must learn the four steps of evangelization of our surroundings, friends and coworkers.

Third Sunday of Easter 2013
Vatican II
About forty years ago, acting on the directions of the Fathers of the Council, a team of expert Scripture scholars and liturgists gave the Church what is called the “expanded Lectionary” for Mass. The exact words of the Liturgy Constitution
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Contributed on Apr 13, 2013

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The answer to the new atheism is the old faith, belief in Christ and reception of his forgiveness and grace.

Monday of Third Week in Easter 2013
Gaudium et Spes
It’s been a while, but some years ago I used to hear Christians using the phrase “walk the talk.” That means that what you profess with your lips you have to live with your whole person. Today we are given the first
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Contributed on Apr 20, 2013

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The Council Fathers recognize the obstacles to human unity, and the key to bringing humans together under the leadership of the Good Shepherd.

Monday of 4th Week in Easter 2013
The Good Shepherd
The prophet Isaiah complained, with the voice of God, “all we like sheep have gone astray.” This was truly said of the Hebrew people, and their Jewish descendants. Every time God rescued them from the results of their own bad
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Contributed on Apr 26, 2013

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The actions of Paul and Barnabas at Lystra help us to discover how to appeal to those around us.

Monday of 5th Week in Easter 2013
St. Catherine of Siena
Gaudium et Spes
The Fathers of the Council taught that “God, Who has fatherly concern for everyone, has willed that all men should constitute one family and treat one another in a spirit of brotherhood. For having been created in
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Contributed on May 4, 2013

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Our witness to modern culture has an ally in the fundamental weakness of atheism.

Monday of 6th Week in Easter 2013
Gaudium et Spes
“It is through the gift of the Holy Spirit that man comes by faith to the contemplation and appreciation of the divine plan.” (GS 15) These words of the Council Fathers remind us that we are approaching the great Solemnities of
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